A Perfect Heart's Length Away
by PunkPinkPower
Summary: "A love potion," Stiles croaks for the third time as he mixes up the hangover remedy Deaton had texted him, "You idiot."


_Notes: This is based off a Tumblr post by larrystylinziam, in which they point out that Mistletoe and Juniper were often used in love incenses by druids. This fic portrays Jennifer Blake as the Darach, so please be aware of that going in._

Stiles thinks that maybe he should be impressed.

He thinks that maybe he ought to feel a little bit of respect for the fact that Derek, while half dead and under the effects of a very powerful ancient love potion, had managed to figure out that something was off.

Not before he'd slept with Stiles' teacher and attacked his own pack, of course, but then Stiles thinks again, very powerful love potion, and he feels like he should be able to forgive the guy.

Only. No, not at all. It doesn't seem like that much of an excuse, in the whole big picture.

"A love potion," Stiles croaks for the third time as he mixes up the hangover remedy Deaton had texted him, "You idiot."

"I'm not sure you're being entirely helpful right now," Derek warns with a snarl from where he's cradling his head in his hands on the couch.

"You want to stop sassing and threatening me now," Stiles orders, adding in the last few herbs to the steaming tall glass of green muck, "Or Mr. Bad Decisions Werewolf won't be getting his love hangover antidote."

Derek grunts, a pained, hollow grunt of a broken man, and Stiles actually smirks because it's nice to see the guy acting a little humble. He's not saying he'd wish any more terrible things to happen to Derek Hale, but he doesn't mind seeing Derek admit defeat when they do. It's probably not one of Stiles more attractive qualities, the fact that he doesn't mind watching Derek wallow in self pity.

"Alright, you brain dead love hound," Stiles calls as he walks over, "Drink up. Drown those demons."

Derek reaches out and takes the glass from Stiles without lifting his head, and then he sniffs it. "This is disgusting," Derek says, and he starts to set the glass down.

"Uh-uh," Stiles warns, stopping Derek from pushing it away. "It's supposed to smell disgusting. It's the antidote to her love potion, dude, it's going to smell gross because you are still technically in love with her. Now drink, or I'll shoot you again."

Derek's eyes flicker up at Stiles, as if to assess whether or not Stiles is lying. But no, Stiles shows him as he lifts his shirt up, the pistol Allison had given him is still safely secured on his hip, and there was no lie in his warning. He'd be happy to shoot Derek once or twice more, just to make a point.

Derek lifts the remedy back up, and while he scowls, he does down the whole thing. He slams the glass down on the table when he's done. Stiles rolls his eyes at the drama of it as he picks up the glass to go wash out in Derek's sink.

He watches the looks on Derek's face shift from afar, watches as color starts to come back into his cheeks and his eyes screw up tight and then widen comically. It's like Derek's reliving the entire previous two days in a matter of seconds, only this time he's not love drunk. He's good old sober Derek, and he looks appalled at what he's done.

And now, okay, now Stiles is a little bit proud of Derek. For being able to come round. For being able to realize he was tearing into his own pack at the command of a devil woman and turn on her, to protect Stiles and Lydia from her spell, to take six shots in the chest from Stiles and then _thank him_ for it. Now that he's sure Derek's out of the woods he can let himself be proud.

He walks over to Derek slowly, arms crossed. "So, what did we learn?" He drawls slowly, a little smugly, and Derek lifts his head off the couch to scowl at him.

"I should have disemboweled you when I was still under," Derek says, narrowing his eyes, "And I wouldn't even have to feel guilty."

Stiles grins. "Yeah, uh huh, tough guy, all talk," Stiles says, and he stops, shuffles his feet. "So you feel better? You're okay?"

Derek stares in front of him, lets out a long breath. "I'm back to normal. I'm not okay."

Stiles raises his eyebrows at the admission. "Do you… want to talk about it?"

"No," Derek snaps instantly, and then he's standing, stretching, and starts walking around the loft, like he's inspecting it.

"I think we should talk about it," Stiles offers casually to Derek's back.

"Fuck off," Derek snarls at him, and Stiles just makes a face and nods.

"Yeah see, that?" Stiles indicates toward him, "That is not healthy. Holding things in, not healthy. Trust me, I know, okay?"

"I don't need to talk about it," Derek insists, and he goes about picking up the loft. Stiles watches him for a moment, watches as Derek takes a towel and uses his foot to scrub at the blood stains on the concrete floor, too hurt or sore to bend over and do it. He watches Derek throw shredded clothes in the hamper as if washing them will fix the tears, and then he watches Derek stare daggers at his bed. For a long, long time.

Stiles walks over, and Derek's head flicks toward him like he'd forgotten Derek was there.

Stiles just stands, and waits.

"It smells like her," Derek admits after a long tense moment, in the quietest voice Stiles has ever heard him use.

"Yeah," Stiles agrees, looking at the rumpled sheets, "I think we should probably burn them."

To his surprise, this makes the corner of Derek's lip turn up, and when he moves forward to start throwing the pillows off the bed in a heap on the floor, Stiles steps forward and helps him tug the sheets off and ball them up and put them all in a trash bag.

When the mattress is bare and Derek's holding the sheets stained with his and Ms. Blake's gross sex fluids, Stiles rubs a hand over his head and says, "Derek, we have to talk about this."

Derek sighs, throws down the trash bag and sits on his barren mattress in a slump. "What do you want me to say, Stiles? I'm an idiot, I know I'm an idiot, and I don't think any member of the pack is going to let me forget it anytime soon. I should have known the second she touched me, but I didn't alright? Is it so bad that for a few moments of weakness I wanted to believe that an attractive woman might be interested in me for me and not because she could use me in her evil plan for world domination?"

Stiles chews on his lip while Derek talks, and he really has no answer for that, so instead he just quips, "So you admit you still find her attractive."

"Stiles!" Derek roars, and Stiles holds up his hands.

"I'm just trying to assess where we are," Stiles defends himself, taking a step back, "Just, you know, making sure you're not still vulnerable to her evil Durach charms, and shit, Jesus, calm down."

Derek makes an angry sound, hangs his head where he sits.

"Look Derek," Stiles says, and he's going to try and get out the words no one else is going to say because he knows he's the only one with the guts or sanity at this point to do so, "When we thought you were dead, literally every member of your pack tried to commit suicide, okay? And, I might add, that was her influence over them. While she was here, doing stuff to you, she was in their heads. And I'm not blaming you, but when we got back here, and saw you were alive and working with her, that shit was scary, okay? I thought we'd lost you for good. It was literally worse that you being dead."

Derek looks up from the floor and out towards the window. "That's good to know," he says morbidly.

"What I'm saying," Stiles continues, "Is that I don't care. I literally don't care about anything that happened while you were under. I'm furious, don't get me wrong, at her, especially since I was seriously stressing out about not having my 20 page essay for her class done by Monday, but I don't care about the rest of it because that wasn't you, okay? You are stronger than that. You fought her, Derek, even under what Deaton called the most powerful love potion he's ever seen. That's you, not that other guy who turned on us."

"It was me, though," Derek says, and his voice sounds bitter, hurt, numb. "I know how love potions work. I know that it was supposed to make her seem like everything I wanted. But I still…" Derek trails off, gestures helplessly with his hands. "It felt so _real_."

"Yeah," Stiles agrees, and he sticks his hands on his hips, making a sniffing sound, "I imagine it was supposed to. But it wasn't."

"I'm not as sure as you are," Derek says, and Stiles… Stiles wants to throw this man off a building.

"Do you have any idea, any idea at all what _real_ feels like?" Stiles asks, and he can't keep the anger and built up emotions out of his voice. "Real is not some stupid meeting in the parking lot with a woman you hardly know who doesn't even bother trying to doctor you up! Real isn't some chick that makes you forget about your friends who are in danger so she can suck your dick! Real," Stiles sputters, throws his hands around, completely loses it, "REAL, Derek, is someone who's willing to cut off your arm to save your life because you're hurt! Real is someone who risks their life to save yours even when there is nothing in it for them but pain and more pain and they do it anyway! Real is someone who has spent actual time trying to know you and help you and make you better! Real is someone who lies to their parents, to their friends, someone who picks up the pieces when shit like this happens, that's real Derek, and fuck you, you fucking idiot.

"Why," Stiles continues, and Derek is just staring at him like Stiles is hitting him over and over, "Did you not call me? Why did you go to her in the first place and let her put that spell on you? What the hell were you thinking?"

Derek stands, his face going angry, and his fists balling up, and Stiles thinks for sure he's going to get hit when Derek yells, "I was looking for you!"

Stiles opens his mouth to yell back, but then he falters. "I," Stiles stumbles, dropping his shoulders, "What?"

"I went to the school because that's where I knew you'd be," Derek continues, and he reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a crushed cell phone, "Because I couldn't call you. My phone wasn't as lucky as I was when it came to surviving that fall, and I couldn't go to your house and I couldn't come back here alone, so I went looking for you!" Derek is shouting now, too. "And you had to be on that stupid cross country trip, out of the fucking city, Stiles, you- you didn't even come looking for me! How is that supposed to feel real?"

Stiles opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He tries two, three times, to say something to Derek's seething anger, but in the end all he can muster is, "You came looking for me, as in, me, specifically?"

Derek's nostrils flare, but he agrees, "You, specifically."

Stiles' stomach sinks in an instant. "Oh," he mumbles, and he takes a few steps back from Derek as it hits him, "Oh."

Derek seems to calm slightly, and he looks away from Stiles and towards the empty mattress.

"You were looking for me," Stiles starts, and he's wishing he could suck his smugness and his outburst back into his lungs, "And I wasn't there, and so you went to her," he keeps going, feels his chest tighten in guilt, "And she shoved enchanted mistletoe berries down your throat when you passed out and this is actually all my fault," Stiles pauses, has to stop to suck air into his lungs as the crushing guilt hits him and Derek isn't looking at him and, "Shit."

"It's not your fault, Stiles," Derek says, but he's not looking at Stiles, and even Stiles non-werewolf abilities can sense when Derek isn't sure he's telling the truth or not.

"Shit," Stiles repeats, and then because that doesn't feel strong enough to express how he's feeling inside he adds, "Fuck. I'm sorry, Derek, I, god, sorry."

Derek looks over at him, all broken eyes and sad eyebrows and lips tight. "I know what real feels like, Stiles," Derek adds, quietly, all the anger out of his voice, "And sometimes real hurts, too."

Stiles stares at Derek, thinks _yeah, yeah it does_ over and over in his head, chews on his lip. He brings a hand up, runs it through his hair as he struggles to find any words at all the convey how awful he feels. Finally all he can do is look up and be honest. "I really, really want to kiss you right now," Stiles admits to the quiet room, "But I'm not sure you're entirely in the right headspace yet and I feel like that might be taking advantage of you, so," Stiles turns, runs a hand over his neck and feels completely torn up as he heads for the loft doors, "I'm just going to go."

His hand is on the door when Derek calls out, "Don't leave."

Stiles stops, turns just enough to catch Derek out of the corner of his eye.

"Stiles," Derek says, and he sounds so broken, so ripped open, "I'll let you burn the sheets, okay?"

Stiles turns his head around, and Derek is gesturing to the garbage bag helplessly.

"Just don't go, right now, not like this," Derek pleads, and his face looks like he's loath to do it, but he does it anyway. "Yes, I'm still really fucked up from the last forty eight hours, and yes part of me still has feelings for Jennifer"-Stiles tries not to scowl at the way Derek says her name-"even after the antidote. But when you're here," and Derek flings his hand out, gestures as openly as Stiles usually does, looking completely at a loss, "It gets better. You're," Derek hesitates, and Stiles turns all the way around to look at him, "_real_."

It takes all of ten seconds for Stiles to cross the room again, and he throws his arms around Derek. He wraps one around his gigantic shoulders and the other around his waist and he holds on as tightly as he can, hooks his chin over Derek's shoulder and knocks their heads together. Derek's arms come up around Stiles, slowly, but firmly, and he pulls them even tighter together.

"I'm not going to kiss you," Stiles warns, his words coming out in a slur, "For previously stated reasons. I don't-" Stiles swallows, tries to get his words to come out somewhat coherently as he hugs Derek and runs his hands all over his broken wolf, "I'm not _her_, and I'm not going to throw this on you right now. You don't need me on top of-"

"I do," Derek interrupted, his voice buried in Stiles shoulder. Stiles stops talking, tilts his head into Derek's to listen. "I do need you," Derek mumbles, and god, Stiles thinks, _ow_.

Derek's arms tighten. And then they let up, and Derek is pulling away, and Stiles turns his head just to glance at the look on Derek's face. But Derek's face is turned towards his, too, and Derek is the one who leans forward, who presses their lips together, like it's something he needs, like Stiles is something he needs, and Stiles just twists his head to comply. He lets Derek kiss him as long as he needs to, kisses him back, feels Derek's hand under his shirt running up his back, brings his own hand up to put on the back of Derek's neck, and before he knows it Derek's tipping him back onto the bare mattress.

Stiles shifts, feels Derek's weight pressed against him, kisses him harder. Derek's hands are on him, on his sides and on his thighs. It feels real, it feels blissful, and then it feels like Derek is trying to take this and put it up in place of all the terrible things he's done in the last two days. It makes Stiles want to kiss him harder.

But then Derek pulls away, and he lays his head down on Stiles' chest, right over his heart, and takes in these big, deep breathes. Stiles brings his hand up to Derek's hair, runs his fingers through it, feels his heart beating hard in his chest from the breathlessness of their kiss.

Derek doesn't move, and Stiles tries to keep himself calm while he just pets Derek's hair, but then suddenly he starts thinking about the fact that he's just made out with a guy coming down from a love potion high and how that may not have been a good idea even if Derek wanted it. It must raise his heart rate, because Derek's hand comes up to rest of Stiles chest, too, and Derek looks up at him.

"Nothing," Stiles promises, trying to look innocent, "I'm good, this is, yes, good, fine."

It seems to snap Derek out of whatever haze he's in. He lifts himself up, crawls backwards off the bed, and then he's holding out a hand for Stiles. Stiles takes it, let's Derek haul him up, and Stiles goes lightheaded for a minute as Derek holds onto his hand and presses their foreheads together.

"Come on," Derek says eventually, taking a step back and dropping Stiles hand, "I want this smell out of here. You have a lighter?"

It takes Stiles a moment to realize what Derek is talking about, and then he's fishing around in his pockets and shrugging. "I think I have matches in my Jeep," he says, and Derek is hauling open the loft doors and Stiles follows him out.

"Derek?" Stiles asks as they're walking down the stairs and out into the barren parking lot.

"Hmmm?" Derek wonders, and Stiles stops, waits for Derek to turn before he continues.

"Someday," Stiles says carefully, "When we're not, when this isn't all screw up and muddled… I want you to kiss me like that again. Because I want to be sure you mean it."

He thinks that comes out weird, but Derek doesn't look offended. He just gets a sort of wistful look on his face and goes, "And in the meantime?"

Stiles tilts his head. "Huh?"

Derek walks over a half finished cinder block wall, empties the bag of sheets out and sits down on the wall, like he's waiting for Stiles to set them alight. Stiles waits for an answer, gets a sassy look from Derek's eyebrows, and he throws his hands up and heads to his Jeep, finds the matches and some starter fluid, and they very carefully set the demon sex sheets alight.

"In the meantime, what?" Stiles wonders, as they watch the cheap cotton sheets shrivel up and burn away.

"In the meantime," Derek repeats, "Can I just kiss you like the stupid, fucked up supernatural being that I am?"

Stiles' lips tighten in a thin smile, and he goes over to where Derek's sitting, puts his hands on Derek's face and leans down and kisses him, because it feels good and real and Derek doesn't seem to mind. "You can kiss me however you want," Stiles agrees when they pull apart.

He pulls away, sits next to Derek on the wall while they watch the rest of the sheets burn up and the fire dies out. "That antidote you made me," Derek says after a few moments, "I think its working."

Stiles snorts. "A love potion," he says again, marveling at the ridiculosity that is their lives.

"Stiles, I swear to god," Derek warns, but Stiles just reaches over and gives Derek's hand a squeeze.

"Yeah, yeah, big bad wolf, I know," Stiles agrees, and Derek growls at him. "Gun still on my hip, big guy, watch yourself."

Derek stops growling, shakes his head. "I can't believe you shot me."

"I know!" Stiles agrees, flailing a little, "Wasn't it awesome?"

"You couldn't have shot her?" Derek wonders, turning his head and looking annoyed. "You couldn't have taken out your anger on her, instead of me?"

Stiles shrugs. "Don't worry, she'll get hers, and it'll be a lot worse than a few tiny bullets to the chest."

Derek ignores the part where Stiles is threatening to kill Ms. Blake and says, "Tiny? Have you ever been shot? Those things hurt!"

Stiles laughs, let's Derek lead him back inside, and they argue about bullets and calibers of bullets, and Stiles cleans up Derek's bloody floor for him, and they put fresh sheets on Derek's bed, and things go back to sassy and antagonistic between them.

Save for the fact that when Stiles does eventually leave, Derek kisses him, and that part, Stiles thinks, he could get used to.

Stiles grins, only an inch away from Derek's face when he says, "Now, don't go falling for any crazy evil druid women while I'm gone, okay?"

And he gets a kick in the butt and the loft door slammed in his face, but it's okay, he doesn't mind.

It's real, and it's good, and that's all Stiles cares about.


End file.
